


Find You

by error404_happinessnotfound



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, American Sign Language, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Child Abandonment, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Deaf, Deaf Character, Fluff and Angst, Police, Sign Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25791472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/error404_happinessnotfound/pseuds/error404_happinessnotfound
Summary: Police AU in which Hyunwoo and Jooheon make a startling discovery.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	Find You

“Listen up,” the chief said, banging several times on the podium, and the officers in the room quieted down surely but gradually. “The victims of last night’s home invasion were the Yoo family.”

Whispers started up almost immediately, and Hyunwoo turned to the officer next to him, Lee Jooheon. “Am I supposed to know them?”

“Yeah,” Jooheon said, eyes a little wide at Hyunwoo’s ignorance. “Or I guess, you would have if you ever turned on your television.”

Jooheon had been Hyunwoo’s partner for the past five or so years, and the two were polar opposites. Jooheon was a big sports fan and went out to watch the games over a few beers with other officers; Hyunwoo was two steps away from being a shut-in. He lived a quiet life, and although he had a television, it was growing dusty in a forgotten corner of his house. He had always been more into reading than watching.

“So they’re famous?” Hyunwoo surmised.

Jooheon nodded. “I’m honestly surprised you haven’t heard of them, television or not. They’re phenomenal singers-”

“Singers?”

Another nod. “Their whole family line has been in the performing arts for the past three generations, at least. Mr. and Mrs. Yoo have performed at huge events for the past two decades – I’m talking sports games, political conferences, galas, you name it. I think they performed at the last Olympics that were held in Korea, and they’ve met with the president at least twice. And they have a little kid now – he must be around 10 – and, no surprise, he’s an amazing singer too. They go on tours together, all three of them.”

“So why would someone target them for a home invasion?” Hyunwoo asked, but the chief pounded on the podium before Jooheon could reply. He closed his open mouth and rubbed his thumb and index finger together to give Hyunwoo a hint: money.

“Quiet!” the chief shouted, recouping everyone’s attention as he fiddled with a small remote and turned to the screen behind him. “Here are the photographs taken at the crime scene by our forensics unit.”

The overhead projector whirred to life, throwing a blue square onto the screen as it booted up. Then, without warning, the blue square gave way to a horrific photo of three people tied to chairs, throats slashed.

Hyunwoo’s stomach turned, but he forced himself to study the details, to try and remain focused and objective. The man on the left was clearly Mr. Yoo, and seated between himself and Mrs. Yoo was the child Jooheon had mentioned. Each of them were seated on heavy wooden chairs that didn’t match the surrounding furniture and must have been dragged in from the kitchen. Their arms were bound behind them, and their legs were bound to the legs of the chair with silver duct tape. The blood from their throats was overwhelming and impossible to ignore; Hyunwoo only knew that Mrs. Yoo’s shirt had originally been white due to a small unstained patch just below her shoulder.

The chief clicked to the next slide, which was taken from an angle behind the three victims to display the duct tape binding their hands. A few other photos confirmed that jewelry, cash, and other valuables had been stolen, and all three bedrooms had been overturned and very nearly destroyed.

“Lee Jooheon and Son Hyunwoo,” the chief called out after he’d finished showing all the photos. Jooheon and Hyunwoo raised their hands, and the chief looked at them briefly before looking back down to address his clipboard. “I need you two to return to the crime scene. Have another look around, talk to the neighbors, see if they saw anyone entering or exiting the house.” The chief called out several other officers and asked them to canvas the area to see if any goods were dropped as the unsubs left the house. A few other assignments were delegated, and then the meeting was over.

“My car or yours?” Jooheon asked, twirling the keys to his squad car around his index finger.

“You can drive,” Hyunwoo agreed rather easily. He’d had a late night, just couldn’t sleep for whatever reason, which was odd since he normally slept very well. Perhaps a part of him had sensed the horrible actions that had taken place while he had laid in bed.

\--

They pulled up in front of the house, and Hyunwoo stopped outside the squad car, hand on the roof of the car, to take it in.

The house wasn’t excessively large, but something about the modern lines and sleek metal told him that it wasn’t cheap. The structure was remarkably similar to the other houses in the neighborhood, indicating that they’d likely been under contract with the same builder. The yard was meticulous; no toys or tools lying around, garden beds neat and trim, not a weed in sight.

 _Must have a gardener,_ Hyunwoo noted. _No way they can maintain their property this well if they travel frequently._

The backyard was fenced off with a solid wall mounted by spires. The wall came six feet high and provided no sight lines into the back.

_And they like their privacy._

“Gate has a lock,” Jooheon said, nodding to the wall after he caught Hyunwoo’s line of sight. “Only people who have the key are Mr. and Mrs. Yoo and the gardener. And now, the police department. Mr. and Mrs. Yoo’s keys are currently unaccounted for.”

“Has somebody talked to the gardener?”

“Only briefly. He’s coming in to give an official statement this afternoon.”

Hyunwoo nodded, and they made their way to the door. Jooheon slipped a key out of his pocket, inserted it into the lock, and twisted. They heard the click of a lock being disengaged, and then he pulled down on the handle to open the door.

“Any sign of forced entry?” Hyunwoo asked, keeping his eyes on the door frame as they passed through it.

“None,” Jooheon denied, running his hand down the frame. “Someone either came in through the back, or they had a key.”

He shut the door behind them, and they made their way further into the house.

“What was stolen exactly?” Hyunwoo asked as he looked around the room. The sleek, modern style continued on the inside; glass tables and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined with expensive candles, photographs in gilded frames, and yes, the occasional book. Something told him that they were more for decoration than actual reading. The curtains were billowy and heavy, closing off the room from the outside world. No easy lines of sight into the house, then.

“What _wasn’t_ stolen?” Jooheon asked with a sigh as he looked down at a sheet of paper to check the documentation. “Some expensive vases were taken. There’s a jewelry box in the master bedroom that is clearly missing quite a few pieces, and the safe in the master bedroom is empty. Have to assume it wasn’t always that way.”

“The vases must be rather heavy,” Hyunwoo mused, turning in a circle to take in more of the room and mark points of entry. “They wouldn’t have left on foot then. They would have had to have someone pick them up.”

“They could have driven here,” Jooheon offered, but Hyunwoo shook his head.

“An unfamiliar car in front of an expensive home? Everything about this place echoes the need for privacy. I doubt they entertained many guests. Neighbors would remember a strange car that was just sitting here for an hour, especially after hearing that everyone in this house was murdered. They had someone waiting to pick them up, probably idling nearby somewhere.”

“The other officers won’t find anything dropped on their exit then,” Jooheon said, and Hyunwoo nodded.

“Probably not. But if they did, that would be helpful. Stupid criminals are a lot easier to catch than intelligent ones.”

Jooheon snorted and peeked at the next room before turning back to face Hyunwoo. “I’m going to check out the bedrooms. Can you check the kitchen and back door?”

Hyunwoo nodded, and they split in two opposite directions. The kitchen yielded nothing of interest to him besides the three missing chairs and the empty slot in the knife block, but that wasn’t particularly surprising. He’d seen the knife lying discarded in one of the crime scene photos. The back door wasn’t helpful either; no broken screen, no shattered glass, nothing to indicate that someone had forced their way through the door.

He headed further towards the east edge of the house, looking briefly into the pantry and what looked to be a mostly unused office. The computer looked brand new and still smelled fresh from the factory, and the only papers on the desk were a few generic notices from financial companies.

He stepped out of the office and opened what appeared to be a closet full of a variety of women’s coats – raincoats and winter coats and every type in between. He flicked off the bulb and regrouped with Jooheon in the center of the house.

“Nothing interesting in the bedrooms, nothing that we didn’t already know of at least. You find anything?” Jooheon asked.

Hyunwoo shook his head before frowning.

“What is it?” Jooheon asked, tilting his eyes. “I know that frown. That’s a thinking frown. So what’s got you thinking?”

“A house like this,” Hyunwoo said, turning in a slow circle. “No upstairs, which isn’t really that unusual. But these sorts of houses usually have basements. And I didn’t see any access point.”

“You think someone got in through the basement?”

He shrugged. “Front and back door don’t show signs of being tampered with or forced. Maybe there’s a point of entry into the basement.”

So they headed out the back door and into the backyard – more perfectly maintained gardens and patio chairs that looked like they’d been purchased last week. They followed the lay of the house, but they couldn’t find any windows or other points of access.

“Well, if they have a basement, then it’s not accessible from the outside,” Jooheon said after they’d scouted around for ten minutes.

Hyunwoo’s frown deepened. “Let’s talk to the neighbors.”

\--

A conversation with the neighbors yielded little new information. No, they didn’t notice any strange comings and goings. No, they couldn’t think of anyone who had a grudge against the Yoo family. No, they didn’t hear or see anything last night.

The only information Hyunwoo found curious was that both neighbors on either side of the Yoo house said they had a basement.

\--

“What are we doing back here?” Jooheon asked for the second time as Hyunwoo flipped off the lights in the pantry and stepped back into the office.

“The homes in this area look to be built in relatively the same layout, and they each claimed their basement door was on the east side of the house,” Hyunwoo said, rummaging around the bookshelf, moving little knickknacks and books.

“So, you’re looking for a hidden lever or something?” Jooheon asked with a small laugh.

“Something like that.” Hyunwoo thought the spacing of the room was a bit weird. Maybe it was that the bookcase closest to the door appeared wider than the other bookcase; not entirely unusual if they were purchased from separate sets, but the shelves didn’t seem to go back as far as the width of the bookcase would allow.

Jooheon joined him, but after twenty minutes of unsuccessfully tugging on and pulling on objects, they left the room. Hyunwoo opened the closet, which was the last door in the hallway, but still nothing even after they’d pushed all the coats aside. No hidden door on the back wall. Nothing.

Hyunwoo stepped further inside the closet, eyes running up and down the walls as Jooheon suggested that they try talking to the neighbors again.

“Quiet,” Hyunwoo instructed, and Jooheon fell silent as Hyunwoo ran his fingers along a seam in the wall. It was located on the side wall about halfway between the vertical edges and just before the coatrack. There was no reason for there to be a seam there. Even if the builders had used separate pieces of drywall, they could have painted over the tiny gap or covered it in some other ornamental way. Unless, of course, it had been designed that way on purpose.

“When did the Yoo family move into this house?” Hyunwoo asked as he crouched down and inspected where the seam met the baseboard.

“When did they get the house?” Jooheon repeated. “I don’t know. Let me check.” He turned away from the closet and called up someone at the station, repeating Hyunwoo’s question while he continued to take a closer look at the construction. The seam ran down the baseboard as well, and although it was thin and almost impossible to detect, Hyunwoo now traced it across the floor. It was as though the back half of the closet were detached from the front half.

“Thirteen years ago,” Jooheon answered as he appeared back in the door of the closet. “Unlucky for the Yoo’s, right?”

Hyunwoo didn’t respond, just stood up from his crouch and stared at the perplexing closet in front of him.

“Something strange?”

“Yeah,” Hyunwoo said before he got a new idea. Instead of trying to push the rack back towards the wall, he tried grabbing the knob on the end and sliding the rack horizontally. No budge on the left, but on the right...

It slid smoothly into the wall, likely into the extra space behind the bookcase in the office. But it wasn’t just the rack that slid to the side; the entire back half of the closet went with it, revealing a hidden door.

“Holy shit,” Jooheon said as Hyunwoo put his hand on the door and tried to turn the knob to no avail. Wordlessly, Jooheon held out the key ring with the keys to the front door and gate, but neither fit in the lock.

“Shit,” Jooheon repeated as the two stared at the door in frustration. “Do you think the unsubs knew about this door?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think is on the other side?”

“I don’t know,” Hyunwoo repeated. “The basement, is my guess. But what in there is so valuable that they hid the entire door and kept a separate key?”

A quick call to the station revealed that no other keys had been collected with the Yoo’s personal belongings.

“If Mr. or Mrs. Yoo kept it on them, there’s a good chance that the unsubs got it,” Jooheon said with a sigh. “Maybe they thought it was for a safety deposit box or something. That’s if they didn’t know about the room at all.”

“No way around it,” Hyunwoo said with an echoing sigh. “We’ll need to call the locksmith, see if he can get us in.”

“He’s off on Wednesdays,” Jooheon reminded Hyunwoo. “Earliest he’ll be able to do it is eight in the morning tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Hyunwoo said before stepping back and pulling the coatrack back in place. “We’ll come back at eight tomorrow.”

\--

Jooheon kept up polite conversation with the locksmith while Hyunwoo tapped his foot, arms crossed against his chest. Even though they’d managed to wait a whole day, the past fifteen minutes had seemed to drag on for hours.

Finally, he heard the smooth sound of the knob turning and the door popping open.

“Stay here,” Hyunwoo instructed as he slipped past the locksmith and through the door. As expected, he was met with stairs heading down, and he flipped the light switch on his left before progressing down into the basement. To his right and under the stairs was an unfinished section of the basement, just bare cement and equipment for the house’s water heater, plumbing, and electricity. But ahead of him was another door. He twisted the knob but was met with resistance once more.

He cursed and headed back up the stairs. “Did he make a key for the lock to this door?” he asked, and Jooheon went over to the locksmith to check and returned to Hyunwoo with a shiny new key. “Here,” he said, frowning as Hyunwoo turned back to the door. “What’s in there?”

“Another door,” Hyunwoo grumbled before heading back down, this time followed by Jooheon’s footsteps.

“That decides it, it’s gotta be gold, right?” Jooheon asked as Hyunwoo inserted the newly-created key into the lock, feeling it slide in smoothly. “Or maybe famous paintings? Or-”

The door opened to a sight neither of them expected.

“Go upstairs,” Hyunwoo said softly, eyes still ahead of him. “Send the locksmith back, tell him we’re done here.”

“Okay,” Jooheon agreed in an equally quiet tone before turning and heading back up the stairs.

“Hey,” Hyunwoo whispered, crouching slightly so he didn’t seem as intimidating. “Hey, kiddo? Can you hear me?”

The room on the other side of the door was ten by twelve at most. A closet lined the wall to Hyunwoo’s left, directly opposite a bed. Directly adjacent to the closet was a door that stood slightly ajar through which Hyunwoo could just make out the edge of a sink, presumably a small bathroom. Against the far wall was a small desk that just barely fit beside the bed. The walls were painted a pale blue, but there was little other color in the space save a few bright pieces of child’s art pinned to the wall.

The boy sitting behind the desk on the opposite side of the room didn’t even look up. His back was to Hyunwoo so it was difficult to approximate his age, but if Hyunwoo had to guess, he’d say right around thirteen.

“Hey, buddy?” Hyunwoo asked, taking a few cautious steps closer. He didn’t want to scare the poor kid, but there was no way he could just leave him here. Fuck, he’d been locked in for a day and a half now – did he have access to food and water? He could get water from the sink, Hyunwoo reasoned, but what about food? Why couldn’t the locksmith have come in yesterday?

It was only when Hyunwoo tapped the kid’s shoulder that he startled, flinching so violently that he almost fell out of his seat. Hyunwoo immediately took several steps back, crouching down in front of the young boy.

“Hi, my name is Officer Son,” Hyunwoo said slowly, palms facing the boy to show that he meant no harm. But the boy stared at him with wide, scared eyes that were dense with confusion. It was as though he couldn’t understand a word Hyunwoo was saying.

“Can you tell me your name?” Hyunwoo asked, but the boy just stared at him.

“How long have you been in here?” he tried, receiving the same blank stare.

“Fuck,” he mumbled, standing up just as Jooheon entered the room. The boy shrunk down, eyeing the two of them and pressing himself closer to the corner of the room.

“Hey, kid,” Jooheon said, giving the boy a bright smile. “We’re here to help you, okay?”

But the boy didn’t respond.

“I tried that,” Hyunwoo said, sighing as he went over to Jooheon, the two of them keeping an eye on the boy while they discussed what to do. “And – ‘hey, kid’ ? Really?”

“What do I look like, a babysitter?” Jooheon snapped. “How are you even supposed to address kids?”

Hyunwoo shushed him, not wanting the boy to overhear them. “It doesn’t matter, okay. We have to take him back to the station.”

“Will he even come with us?” Jooheon asked, looking over at him skeptically. “He doesn’t exactly seem to appreciate our saving him.”

“He doesn’t have any other option,” Hyunwoo said. “His parents and brother-” He cut himself short, realizing that there was a chance – a fairly high chance, considering the fact that he was locked in the basement – that he had no idea that his family had been slaughtered just a few feet above his head. “We need to bring him in. Call the station and have them get a medic. He could be injured or malnourished.”

While Jooheon made the call, Hyunwoo walked back over to the child and crouched down in front of him. “We’re going to get you out of here, okay? Somewhere safe, with food and water and lots of nice people. Does that sound good?”

The boy didn’t respond, and although Hyunwoo felt discouraged by his lack of response, he just stood up and held out his hand. The boy looked at Hyunwoo’s hand before looking over at the desk, where a sheet of paper lay surrounded by a plethora of worn-down crayons, some of which were just nubs at this point.

“We can take your drawing with,” Hyunwoo said, sliding the paper out from beneath the crayon and holding it out to the boy, who grabbed it in both hands. Then Hyunwoo scooped up all the rogue crayons and dropped them into his front pocket, patting it to show the boy that they were safe. He held out his hand once more. “Are you ready to go?”

The boy’s eyes darted down to his crayon-laden pocket before he slipped a hand into Hyunwoo’s. Hyunwoo closed his hand, encircling the tiny one within it, and led the boy out of the room, only he stopped at the doorway.

“It’s okay,” Hyunwoo said softly. Jooheon was watching them from the stairs, his eyes dark but his mouth silent for once. “It’s okay, you’re allowed to leave.” His heart ached for this boy who felt that he couldn’t leave the ten by twelve square feet that he must have occupied for his entire existence. What did this small boy know of the world? What did he know of anything?

His steps were hesitant, but he allowed Hyunwoo to lead him past the bedroom door, up the stairs, and out of the coat closet, gripping his drawing tightly in his other hand the entire way so that the paper was starting to rumple.

Jooheon had the car started by the time Hyunwoo and the boy got outside, given the slow pace at which they were going. Hyunwoo was starting to get a cramp in his back from having to bend down so the kid didn’t have to raise his arm to hold Hyunwoo’s hand.

Hyunwoo opened the back door of the squad car and went about moving some of Jooheon’s stuff – “Shit, why is my car so messy, we should have taken your car” to which Hyunwoo responded, “How was I supposed to know we were going to find a kid?”

Eventually, the backseat was clear, and Hyunwoo slid in first, gently tugging the kid in after him. Then he reached past the kid to shut the door before buckling him in. The kid didn’t resist; in fact, he hadn’t looked away from the window since they’d gotten in the car.

The ride to the station was short. Or, more accurately, it was probably about the same time as always, but Hyunwoo was preoccupied by heavy thoughts, and he was watching the boy the whole time. He just stared out the window in silence, his face blank as though he couldn’t even begin to perceive what was on the other side of the glass.

They ran into the chief on their way into the station.

“What’s going on?” he asked as Hyunwoo continued on past the lobby doors, the boy’s hand still in his, but he could feel the boy growing more hesitant. He knew it wouldn’t be long now before the boy refused to go any further, so he needed to press on and find the medic before that time came.

“Did you get a medic?” Hyunwoo asked as the chief kept pace with them, throwing frequent glances at the small child trailing behind Hyunwoo.

“He’s in interview room two,” the chief answered, and when they came to a junction in the hallway, Hyunwoo steered them towards the interview rooms. “Officer Son?”

“I’ll explain in a minute,” Hyunwoo said, a little frustrated that the chief couldn’t understand that he needed to take care of the kid before debriefing anyone on anything.

“Right...” he said, stopping and turning in the opposite direction. “I’ll be in my office.”

Hyunwoo just gave a small nod, too focused to be polite, and he slipped open the door to interview room two.

Dr. Lee looked up from the table. “Hyunwoo, what did you need me- oh,” he said as the kid followed Hyunwoo into the room, silent as he took in the space. His eyes seemed to catch on his own blurry reflection on the metal table.

“Hey,” Hyunwoo said softly, crouching down next to the boy. “This is Minhyuk. He’s going to help you, okay? He just needs to take a quick look at you to make sure you’re healthy. Is that all right?”

Again, no response.

Hyunwoo sighed before standing up and shrugging at Dr. Lee. “He hasn’t said a single word since we found him.”

“That’s concerning, but there are a few possible reasons,” Dr. Lee said, frowning before crouching in front of the boy. “My name is Minhyuk! I’m going to make you all better, okay?”

He stood back up and gave Hyunwoo a nod. “I’ll give him a checkup, see if there are any other causes for concern and if any immediate treatment is needed.”

“Great. Thank you,” Hyunwoo said before patting his pocket and pulling out the kid’s crayons. He set them on the table, observing as the boy’s eyes tracked them. “I think he likes coloring. I’ll grab some more paper on my way back. If you guys finish up before then, he’s got a drawing-” Hyunwoo nodded to the paper clutched in the boy’s right hand. “-that I think he’s still working on.”

“Great. Give me fifteen minutes to see what’s up, and then we can talk,” Dr. Lee said before turning back to the boy.

Hyunwoo could tell that he’d been dismissed for now, so he gingerly slipped his hand out of the boy’s, feeling his heart squeeze at the absence, but then he left the room and headed to the chief’s office, where Jooheon was already waiting for him.

“You found that boy at the Yoo residence?” the chief asked immediately, making it clear that Jooheon had already caught him up to speed.

Hyunwoo cleared his throat before shutting the door behind himself and turning back to face the chief. “Yes, sir. We found a hidden door behind the coat closet leading down to a locked room in the basement. That’s where we found the boy.”

The chief was quiet. “How long was he locked in there?”

“We can’t say,” Hyunwoo said. “Dr. Lee is taking a look at him now, but...I don’t have any hard evidence to support it just yet, but I think he’s been in there for as long as he’s been alive.”

The chief stared at him with skepticism clearly written across his face. “That’s a bold assumption, Officer Son. Do you realize how difficult it would be to hide away the existence of a child for that long? There’s documentation and hospital records. Not to mention that the kid had to come from _somewhere_ , and no one asked about his absence?”

“The Yoo family had an older son,” Jooheon spoke up after a moment, and both the chief and Hyunwoo turned to look at him. “A few years before Kihyun was born. But the baby was a stillborn – dead at the time of delivery. There was a televised funeral. It was a national tragedy.”

“Unless he wasn’t,” Hyunwoo said softly. “Unless they wanted people to think he was dead, then bought a new house with a hidden door so they could lock him away from the world.”

“But why would they do that?” the chief asked before amending, “I’m not saying that it’s not a possibility. But Mr. and Mrs. Yoo were doing well – they were more than comfortable financially, they had a sterling reputation, they were in no shortage for work. I just don’t see that they could have had a motive for faking the death of their own child.”

“Whether they faked their child’s death or not,” Hyunwoo contested in a quiet voice, “they knowingly kept a child locked in the basement.”

When the chief was quiet, Hyunwoo felt his frustration amplify.

“You don’t mean to suggest that the boy was already locked inside the house before they purchased it and that he maintained a sustainable source of food and water for the past thirteen years? Or perhaps the people responsible for murdering the Yoo family decided to drop off a kid at the same time?”

“I’m not saying that,” the chief replied gruffly. “It just seems far-fetched to suggest that the Yoo family actively neglected a child. I think we need to be very careful with how we handle this information.” He gave Hyunwoo and Jooheon a sharp glance. “It would be best if this new development didn’t reach the ears of the media.”

Hyunwoo clenched his jaw but didn’t reply. He understood the position the chief was in; if allegations of neglect were incorrectly leveled against beloved public figures who were recently murdered, the police station would come out on bottom, and they would be publicly vilified until something worse happened.

“Find out what you can from Dr. Lee. I’ll do a little digging of my own, but let’s all agree that this information stays exclusively on a need-to-know basis. I trust your discretion.”

Hyunwoo and Jooheon both nodded, and then they were dismissed. As promised, Hyunwoo snagged some paper from the printer before returning to interview room two to find Dr. Lee watching the boy color intently. When the door opened, he looked up to meet Hyunwoo’s eyes and nodded to the mirror, indicating that they had things to discuss in private.

“Jooheon, can you keep an eye on him?” Hyunwoo asked, and Jooheon nodded, slipping into the chair next to the boy as Hyunwoo followed Dr. Lee out into the hallway and then into the observation room, where they could see Jooheon and the boy through the mirror.

“What did you find?” Hyunwoo asked, turning his eyes away from the boy to focus on Dr. Lee for the moment.

“He seems to be in good health,” Dr. Lee offered up. “From what I can tell, he hasn’t eaten in some time – two days, would be my guess. I already flagged down someone and asked them to bring me something from the break room.” He gestured to the assortment of edibles on the table.

Hyunwoo nodded; that was consistent with what he’d guessed. “Any injuries?”

“Nothing recent. He has a scar right about here-” Dr. Lee paused to trace a line over his own abdomen. “-and what’s odd is that Yoo Kihyun – the boy that was murdered – has an almost identical scar in the same location. I have a theory about that, but I’ll need some time to verify.”

Hyunwoo frowned but nodded. “Anything else?”

“Oh, yes. One other thing. He’s deaf.”

Hyunwoo blinked, his mouth falling open. “Deaf?”

Dr. Lee nodded. “I believe he has prelingual deafness, meaning that he’s been deaf since before the age of one. He may have even been born deaf, which would be congenital deafness. That’s why he hasn’t been responding to you. My assumption is that, even if he heard you, he wouldn’t know how to respond since he would have gone deaf before learning language patterns. He doesn’t have a hearing aid, and he doesn’t seem to be able to read lips. I’m not fluent in sign language, but I tried a few basic phrases, and he displayed no recognition.”

“So, no one ever taught him how to communicate?” Hyunwoo asked slowly.

Dr. Lee gave a slow shake of his head. “Doubtful. He probably developed his own mechanisms for communicating and understanding the world around him, but it’s impossible for us to know what those mechanisms are without being able to ask him. So if you needed to question him for your investigation, I’ll state right now that I don’t think that would be productive for you or healthy for him.”

Hyunwoo nodded as he kicked his foot against the ground, trying to figure out where to go from here. “Can he read? Write?”

“I didn’t check,” Dr. Lee said with a small shrug. “Did you see any books in the area he was kept?”

Hyunwoo pictured the room in his mind before shaking his head. “No. And if the people responsible for him-” He was hesitant, given the chief’s warning, to name the Yoo’s specifically. “-couldn’t bother to communicate with him, then I doubt they took the time to teach him to read.” He was quiet for a long moment. He didn’t often get angry, but when he did, it was a heavy, unstoppable tide. It was difficult for him to calm down again. “Dr. Lee, is there any way for you to tell how long he was in captivity for?”

There was no other wording that Hyunwoo thought fit quite as well, even if it made the boy sound like an exotic animal.

Dr. Lee frowned and ran a hand through his hair. “That’s hard to say. I don’t know that there’s any way to determine that just from his physique. If we could ask him about his containment...” Dr. Lee sighed. “But that seems to be a dead end.”

“Is there any way we could get a speech pathologist to work with him?” Hyunwoo asked, looking back out the mirror. The boy was intent on his coloring, largely ignoring Jooheon despite his attempts to start conversation. “Is that even the right sort of specialist for a case like this?”

“I’m not sure, but I’ll check around,” Dr. Lee agreed. “I’d like to see him again. Little kids are much more entertaining than cadavers.”

“I think that would be best. Thanks again,” Hyunwoo said, pulling open the door. “And Dr. Lee? Your discretion would be much appreciated on this matter.”

Dr. Lee held Hyunwoo’s eye contact for a long moment before nodding to indicate that he understood. “Got it. And no need to thank me, Hyunwoo. I’ll get back to you once I know more.”

“Thank you,” Hyunwoo said, and Dr. Lee nodded before returning to whatever he’d been working on before. Hyunwoo gave himself a few moments to take a deep breath before heading back into the interrogation room. “All right, so we’re just going to-” He cut himself off when he remembered that it didn’t matter what he told the boy; his words would never be heard. But he needed to find a way to communicate with the kid, to assure him that he had good intentions. He’d uprooted him from the only life he’d ever known, after all, with no way to explain what was happening. Hyunwoo imagined that the boy must have felt very scared at all the abrupt change.

Jooheon looked up when it was clear that he wasn’t going to continue. “Hyunwoo?”

Hyunwoo ran a hand along the back of his neck. “Dr. Lee said he’s deaf, and that’s why he hasn’t been responsive to our questions.”

“And here I thought he just didn’t like me.” Jooheon seemed momentarily perplexed. “Well...what are we supposed to do?”

Hyunwoo shrugged, trying to push the dismay off. “See if he can read and write, I guess. Otherwise...I’m not sure. Dr. Lee is checking on something for me.”

Jooheon tugged one of the sheets of paper Hyunwoo had brought closer, and he picked up a crayon. The boy stopped coloring to look over at Jooheon, curious, and it was only then that Hyunwoo saw the drawing. It was of the boy’s room, and it made him profoundly sad that the boy’s imagination was limited to a single room when he could be drawing anything on that sheet of paper.

_My name is Jooheon. What’s your name?_

Jooheon dropped the crayon and held the sheet of paper in front of his chest before passing it over to the boy and setting the crayon down on top of the paper.

The boy stared at the letters for a long time before picking up the crayon. Hyunwoo took a breath and held it, trying to just be still and observe. But then he remembered – again, in the span of five minutes, he’d forgotten twice – that the boy couldn’t hear him and therefore wouldn’t be startled. It was hard to remember that.

The boy began writing on the paper, and Hyunwoo felt a pressure build in his chest. What could the boy tell them? His name, whether or not the Yoo’s were his parents? How long he had been essentially imprisoned?

But when the boy pushed the sheet of paper back to Jooheon, Jooheon just held it up with a sigh, eyes meeting Hyunwoo’s with defeat.

Underneath Jooheon’s handwriting was new writing, considerably shakier like the wobbly legs of a newborn giraffe.

_My name is Jooheon. What’s your name?_

“I think it’s safe to assume that he can’t read or write,” Jooheon said, setting the paper back down on the table with a long sigh.

“But he can copy pretty well,” Hyunwoo said. It was disappointing, but it gave him a little bit of hope. The boy had only seen the letters once, and yet he’d managed to reproduce them rather well. The writing was still clearly that of a child, but it was impressive for a first attempt. “Why don’t you take a break,” Hyunwoo suggested. “Get some coffee, maybe follow up on some of our leads earlier. See if the other teams found anything, track down the original builder of the house to see if the Yoo’s purposefully had that hidden compartment installed and if they knew what it was for.”

Jooheon nodded, scooting back his chair and wincing as it gave a metallic shriek. “Sorry,” he said before looking at the boy, his mouth hanging open for a moment before closing as he realized, like Hyunwoo had, that he hadn’t bothered the boy, _couldn’t_ bother the boy. But the boy did look a little startled; maybe he’d felt the vibrations from the floor. “What are you planning to work on?” Jooheon asked, mainly so they didn’t overlap too much on chasing leads.

“I’m going to work with him a little longer,” Hyunwoo said, still watching the boy, who grabbed a new sheet of paper and began tracing shapes nearly identical to his first drawing; he was creating the room, again. Hyunwoo tried to remember whether or not the drawings on the wall of his room had also been of the same image; he couldn’t’ say for certain, but he had a sinking feeling that they were.

“All right,” Jooheon said gently, turning to face the boy. He opened his mouth to say goodbye, but after a long moment of hesitance, he just gave an awkward nod and turned to the door. Then it was just Hyunwoo and the boy.

He waited a moment before settling down into the chair Jooheon had vacated and grabbing a new sheet of paper. He scoped out all the crayons before grabbing a purple one.

_A B C D E F G_

He passed the sheet over to the boy and held out the purple crayon. The boy stared at the letters before looking up at Hyunwoo, trying to read his intentions from his face. He took the crayon, studied the letters some more, then went about recreating them in the space beneath. He pushed the sheet back towards Hyunwoo, then hesitantly set the crayon down on top of it.

_A B C D E F G_

Hyunwoo turned to the boy and smiled, nodded. Then he added a new line below the boy’s handwriting.

_H I J K L M N O P_

He pushed the sheet back towards the boy, and they repeated the process. When the boy pushed the sheet back this time, he’d copied Hyunwoo’s second line, and his lines appeared to be growing stronger, more confident after just several iterations.

_Q R S T U V W X Y Z_

Hyunwoo passed the paper once more, sending away more letters than the previous two times, and the boy returned the paper with a replica of his writing, only the S was mirrored. Hyunwoo made a show of crossing out the boy’s S and shaking his head before writing the S once more by itself. Then he handed the paper back to the boy.

The boy’s eyes darted to the crossed-out S, and his brow furrowed as his eyes flicked between the original S and the crossed out one. Then he examined the new S before jumping back to his previous one. Finally, he took the purple crayon and drew a new S next to Hyunwoo’s, matching the correct style this time. He looked up to Hyunwoo for a reaction, and Hyunwoo smiled, nodding encouragingly.

And the boy gave him a shy smile.

Hyunwoo’s mouth parted, just a bit, because he’d never seen the boy smile before this, and it made him feel all sorts of confusing emotions. Happy because the boy was happy, sad because all it took to make him happy was drawing an S correctly.

But he returned the boy’s smile, not wanting to discourage him from doing so, and grabbed a new sheet of paper, this time writing the whole alphabet at once, and he switched to a blue crayon this time. He had the absurd fear that if he only wrote in purple, the boy would only understand purple writing, which would be an issue. So he needed to keep varying the colors and mediums to show the boy that the letters were the constant, not the stylistic elements.

He handed over the paper and watched in awe as the boy worked, staring at the letter before copying it and moving on to the next one. He was writing twice as fast as the first time, and the letters were more pronounced, stronger already. He slowed down for a minute on the S, studying it for longer than the other letters before tracing it once then copying it slowly. He looked over to Hyunwoo quickly for confirmation before finishing the rest. Then he passed it back over to Hyunwoo, who gave him another smile before setting the sheet of paper off to the side.

He picked up a new paper and slid a blank one in front of the boy as well. Then he drew a blue A on his own paper, holding it up so the boy could see the letter before flipping the paper over so it was hidden. He held out a red crayon to the boy.

The boy took the crayon slowly, his eyes trailing off to Hyunwoo’s right as he recalled the image. Then he drew his own letter A.

They repeated the process for each of the twenty-six letters. Each time, the boy was able to correctly recall the shapes. Sometimes, Hyunwoo would hand him a yellow crayon or a green crayon or a black crayon, and although the boy would slow down initially on the first letter or two with the new color, he sped up again after he’d adjusted. It was remarkable. Hyunwoo didn’t know much of anything about psychology or kids, but he could tell this boy was special.

After a while of practicing letters, Hyunwoo wrote his own name on a piece of paper, still using all capital letters so as not to confuse the boy. In all honesty, it was only now that he remembered that there even _were_ lowercase letters, and he didn’t know how to introduce the boy to them and somehow indicate that they had equivalent forms. So, for now, capitals only.

_HYUNWOO_

He held up the paper in front of himself, then pointed to the word, then himself.

The boy’s eyes followed his gestures, and after a moment, he reached for his own sheet of paper. Without having to look at Hyunwoo’s paper, he copied the word.

_HYUNWOO_

Then he stared at the paper for a moment before setting his index finger on the word, running his finger through the letters before looking over at Hyunwoo. Then he set that same finger on Hyunwoo’s shirt, right on the button. His eyes searched Hyunwoo’s, trying to understand whether or not he’d gotten the meaning correctly.

Hyunwoo nodded, his eyes brightening on their own. His nods grew more emphatic. _Yes,_ he wanted to say, _I am Hyunwoo!_ But it was impossible to know if the boy really understood or if he was just duplicating what he’d seen.

Still, Hyunwoo wanted to believe that they were making progress. He wrote down words for other things – _TABLE, CHAIR, WALL, DOOR, MIRROR_ – and set them on top of the objects, pointing between them. He wished he had tape, but he didn’t, so all he could do was hold them up, and the boy would copy the word on a clean piece of paper before gesturing to the objects Hyunwoo had named.

It was incredible. _He_ was incredible. And when Hyunwoo finally stopped to check his watch, he saw that three whole hours had passed by.

He took a deep breath before looking over at the boy and trying to guess what the boy was seeing. Did he understand what Hyunwoo was? Did he know what police were? Did he know that what had been done to him was wrong? Did he know that he would have learned these letters years ago if he’d been raised correctly?

All questions that would go unanswered for now.

Still, Hyunwoo noticed that the snacks on the table – fruit snacks, granola bars, various fruits – hadn’t been touched. Hyunwoo wasn’t sure if it was because the boy wasn’t hungry – he doubted that – or if he didn’t know the food was for him and that he was allowed to eat it.

Hyunwoo reached out and grabbed a fruit snack, holding it in front of the boy, but although the boy’s eyes tracked the movement, he didn’t seem to understand what he was supposed to do with it. Hyunwoo slowly opened the package, modeling for the boy how it was done, before shaking out several fruit snacks onto the paper in front of him. Then he picked one up between his thumb and index finger and popped it into his mouth. He gave some exaggerated chews – the fruit snack was ridiculously tiny in his mouth – before swallowing. Then he watched the boy.

The boy seemed to understand that Hyunwoo was waiting for something, and his eyes flicked between Hyunwoo and the fruit snacks before he picked one up between his thumb and index finger, even mimicking Hyunwoo’s hold, before sticking it in his mouth. He chewed on it for a little bit before swallowing. Then he watched Hyunwoo.

Hyunwoo grabbed another one, this time using his thumb and two fingers, stuck out his tongue, and placed the fruit snack on it. Then he retracted his tongue, chewed, and swallowed. The boy copied him exactly, down to how he held the fruit snack, placing it on the center of his tongue, and eating it. When he looked to Hyunwoo again, Hyunwoo grabbed an extra pack of fruit snacks and dumped them on the paper in front of himself. Then he pushed the boy’s paper closer to the boy and began eating his own fruit snacks.

The boy followed slowly, matching Hyunwoo’s pace for the most part, and soon enough, both pieces of paper were empty.

Hyunwoo repeated the process with granola bars – fruit would be too messy, he thought – and soon there were two more wrappers on the table. Then he set a fruit snack and a granola bar in front of the boy and waited. When the boy didn’t seem to understand, Hyunwoo pantomimed looking between the two, thinking hard, and then picking up one. He set them back down in front of the boy and waited once more.

It took a few seconds, but eventually, the boy reached out and took the packet of fruit snacks, holding it above the table as though he were ready to drop it at any second if that’s what he was supposed to do. But Hyunwoo just nodded at him, and the boy stared at the pack for a minute before slowly tearing open the plastic and dumping them out. He started eating them one by one again, looking over at Hyunwoo every now and then as though waiting to see if the fruit snacks would be taken away or if Hyunwoo was intending on eating any. When it became clear that the fruit snacks were his and his alone, he ate faster, throwing one into his mouth almost right after the previous one had disappeared. Soon enough, another packet was gone.

Hyunwoo decided that was probably enough for now – even if the boy was hungry, he could get sick if he ate too much right away. He moved the snacks a little farther away, and they went back to practicing letters and a few words – Hyunwoo even used his phone to look up pictures of simple objects to show the boy so they added a few new words such as _TREE, HOUSE, CAT, DOG, FIRE, WATER_ – until Jooheon came in.

Hyunwoo and Jooheon moved to the side of the room, Hyunwoo still facing in the boy’s direction.

“Any leads?” Hyunwoo asked, watching as the boy picked up the piece of paper with _TREE_ written on it and began adding something new.

“Some,” Jooheon said, turning to watch the boy as well. “The building contractor? _Poof._ Gone. All paperwork was routed through a shell company, some LLC, and even though we have the name of the contractor when he signed off on something, there’s no guarantee that it’s even his real name. So not much luck there. But,” he said, gaining more energy as he continued. “I went back and pulled up some of the news coverage of the Yoo’s first child, the stillborn. The articles were dated thirteen years and three months ago, so if we’re right and this kid is the one they declared dead, then your guess was spot-on.”

“Anything from the hospital concerning documentation?” Hyunwoo asked, a furrow beginning to form in his brow. “They had to have issued a death certificate, right?”

Jooheon nodded. “I looked up some of the legislature. For fetal deaths, most states issue a certificate if the child dies after the twenty-week period. So if they claim the baby was stillborn, then they should have been issued a certificate. I’m working with the hospital on it, but-” He sighed sharply, dragging a hand through his hair, and Hyunwoo guessed that it hadn’t been going well. “-there’s only so much I can say without exposing our suspicions, not to mention all the red tape concerning HIPAA.”

“Talk to the chief, see if he can expedite the process,” Hyunwoo said, eyes still on the boy.

“I will, but is there something you’re looking for in particular?”

“His name,” Hyunwoo said quietly, and Jooheon also fell silent.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, giving the boy a sympathetic grimace. “What have you guys been up to since I left?”

“Writing,” Hyunwoo said, gesturing to the various papers littering the table. “He’s been copying the alphabet. He seems to have the shapes down rather well. And I’ve been showing him small words for things, trying to associate them. I don’t know if it’s working, but...it might be. He has incredible recall, Jooheon.”

“You mean he can remember things pretty clearly? That could be useful if we can communicate with him later on.”

Hyunwoo nodded. “He seems to be very intelligent. Maybe he’s been starved for knowledge, and this is the first time he’s ever had the opportunity to learn.”

“Might be,” Jooheon agreed before exhaling.

Hyunwoo took a step closer to observe the boy’s progress, peering over his shoulder. On the sheet of paper marked _TREE_ , the boy had drawn a basic version of the tree Hyunwoo had showed him – a trunk and a leafy circle. He’d used the two crayons closest to him, resulting in a blue trunk with orange leaves. Hyunwoo stepped closer to the table, hunting for the brown and green, and when he set them in front of the boy, he looked up at Hyunwoo as though asking for directions. When he received none, the boy picked up the brown crayon and stared down at the paper.

“Which makes you wonder, why lock him away?”

Hyunwoo shook his head, stepping back to Jooheon. He found it difficult to think from a perpetrator’s perspective sometimes, even though it was part of the job, because he’d always had such a strict sense of right and wrong that it was hard to envision the opposite side, even just as an exercise. This situation was perplexing on its own; he struggled to find an answer. “My only thought is about what you told me in the very beginning.”

Jooheon just blinked. “Remind me,” he drawled after a minute. “I have a very short attention span and an even shorter memory.”

“The Yoo history,” Hyunwoo said, watching his face for a flicker of recognition. “You said singers have run in their family for generations, each one of them extremely talented. Imagine Mr. and Mrs. Yoo’s shame at giving birth to a son who was deaf.” Even though he was just trying to picture it from their point of view, the words felt ugly leaving his mouth. The boy at the table was clearly intelligent, remarkably so, and it disgusted him that anyone could abandon him solely based on his inability to hear. But that was the only reason he could think of. “So they pretend that he was never born, they use it as an excuse for public sympathy, and then they conceive a second child who is perfectly healthy, and they parade him around and raise him into the family business.”

“And leave the deaf son – who would only serve as a public embarrassment – locked away where no one would find him,” Jooheon finished, not noticing Hyunwoo’s flinch at the word ‘embarrassment.’

“Still, that seems...”

“Melodramatic, right?” Jooheon finished with a shrug. “But a working theory. Honestly speaking, there isn’t any excusable explanation for neglecting a child,” he said, his voice suddenly growing cold, and Hyunwoo nodded in agreement. Something they’d learned from years on the force was that when adults screwed up, as they often did, it was the kids who paid for it the most.

Hyunwoo got closer for another look at the boy’s drawing to see that he’d recreated a more realistic tree with the colors Hyunwoo had provided him. The boy looked up, and Hyunwoo gave him a nod and a smile, the only real means he had of encouraging the boy. Then Hyunwoo pointed to himself and tilted his head questioningly, and the boy picked up a new sheet up paper.

_HYUNWOO_

The boy held it up with his left hand and pointed to Hyunwoo with his right hand.

Jooheon whistled, not that the boy could hear. “You’re really teaching him to write. That’s incredible.”

Hyunwoo couldn’t contain the smile on his face. He grabbed a new sheet of paper – they were almost out at this point; he’d have to grab more – and a red crayon to show the boy a new name.

_JOOHEON_

Hyunwoo held the sheet of paper in front of Jooheon and pointed between the word and Jooheon’s face. The boy nodded, and Hyunwoo handed the paper over to him.

_JOOHEON_

The boy set down his crayon and pointed to Jooheon, who looked astonished before he started nodding.

“That’s me,” he agreed. He looked over at Hyunwoo, amazement still bright in his eyes. “He’s adorable,” Jooheon declared. “Can we keep him?”

Hyunwoo sighed, the excitement draining from his frame. “You know we can’t. We have to call Child Protective Services to send someone out in the morning.”

“Well, who’s going to watch him tonight?”

“Probably the psychologist,” Hyunwoo guessed. Hoseok was the on-site counselor who provided therapy for those in officer-involved shootings, and he also worked with victims to help them cope and move on. It made the most sense for him to take the boy home for tonight; then they’d have to see what CPS decided in the morning. The boy’s disability made his case exceedingly more difficult; he couldn’t just be put with any old family. Steps would have to be taken to ensure that his new guardians could provide not only for his basic needs but also for the best possible quality of life for a deaf child. That could mean hearing aids, possibly a cochlear implant if he was eligible, specialist doctors...that wouldn’t be cheap.

Jooheon groaned. “That’s no fair. We could have had a big sleepover – you think he’d like that?”

Hyunwoo shrugged, looking over at the child in question. “I don’t think he has anything to compare it to. It would simultaneously be the best and worst sleepover of his life, is my guess.”

“Ha,” Jooheon said, rolling his eyes. “I just...” His eyes softened, and Hyunwoo nodded without having to hear anymore. It was hard to have to let go of this kid. They’d only been together for a few hours now, but it felt like such a journey. Hyunwoo had already watched him grow and develop right in front of his eyes. Handing over his safety and care to someone else...it would be hard. He didn’t think he could do it if he wasn’t completely assured that the family that took in this boy was ready to properly nurture him.

“I know,” Hyunwoo said, and as he looked back at the boy, he noticed him squirming slightly in his seat. He frowned, stepping closer. “Are you hungry?” he asked before shaking his head; it was hard to break the habit of asking questions, even given the boy’s condition. He held out a pack of fruit snacks in front of the boy, who shook his head.

“When’s the last time he went to the bathroom?” Jooheon asked, and Hyunwoo’s mind froze.

“I don’t know, I forgot to take him,” Hyunwoo mumbled, and Jooheon’s eyes widened.

“This poor kid has probably had to pee for the past hour,” Jooheon said, already opening the door and gesturing for the kid to follow. When the boy didn’t get up, Jooheon paused and held out his hand as Hyunwoo had done earlier, and the boy looked to Hyunwoo, who nodded, before going with Jooheon.

The door clicked shut behind them, and Hyunwoo exhaled heavily. He’d never had to take responsibility over anyone else before. He’d never had kids of his own, no nieces or nephews, not even a dog. He was quickly finding out that it was extremely stressful.

An idea came to mind, and he grabbed a paper and crayon before heading to the bathroom. When the boy came out, Jooheon following him, Hyunwoo motioned for them to stop. While they stood beside him, he held the paper against the door and wrote a new word for the boy.

_BATHROOM_

He pointed to the door they’d just come out of. Then, still holding up the paper with one hand, he held the crayon out to the boy, who copied the word. He hoped the boy would remember the word and could communicate to whoever was taking care of him that his needs had to be met.

\--

_HOSEOK_

Once he’d written the word, he pointed to Hoseok, and the boy copied the letters down. Now he knew the names of Hyunwoo, Jooheon, Minhyuk (Hyunwoo had taught the boy his name when he’d checked in earlier), and finally, Hoseok.

“You’re going to stay with Hoseok for tonight,” Hyunwoo said. Even though he knew the boy couldn’t hear him, he felt more comfortable by explaining what was happening. Hyunwoo looked over to Hoseok, who was standing by the door with a calm smile on his face. “You’re sure you’re okay with this?” A silly question given that Hoseok was more equipped than he was to deal with the trauma of a victim.

But Hoseok just smiled kindly, seeming to sense Hyunwoo’s difficulty in handing over responsibility. “He’s going to be just fine,” he promised. “I’ve got a spare room at my place anyway ever since my roommate’s lease ended. He can stay with me until we hear what Child Protective Services has to say on the matter. And I’ll still bring him to work with me, so you’ll get to see him tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Hyunwoo said, dipping his head in gratitude before turning back to the boy. “All right, it’s time to go,” he said.

“C’mon, buddy,” Hoseok said, offering a hand, and once more, the boy checked with Hyunwoo before taking it.

“Here,” Hyunwoo said abruptly, scooping up the extra fruit snack packs and shoving them in Hoseok’s empty hand. “He likes these.”

“Okay, thanks,” Hoseok said with a laugh, slipping them into his jacket pocket. “Ready?” he asked the boy before leading him out.

As soon as the two were gone, Hyunwoo felt all the energy drain from him. He sat down into the chair the boy had just vacated, almost melting into the metal.

“Hoseok will take good care of him,” Jooheon assured Hyunwoo, misreading his fatigue.

“I know he will,” Hyunwoo said with a nod. “I’m just...” He didn’t really know what to do with himself. What had he been doing before they’d found a kid? He shook his head, trying to summon the recollection, but he felt too exhausted to think.

“Go home and rest,” Jooheon said lightly. “You’ve been working with him all day. Get some sleep, and we’ll try to figure it all out tomorrow, okay?”

Hyunwoo looked up, feeling guilty all of a sudden. “But you’ve done all the legwork so far. Calling the hospital, the contractor...”

“It’s fine,” Jooheon dismissed, waving a hand in the air. “Really. You had the harder job today. So just go home and relax for a while. Who knows what tomorrow’s going to throw at us.”

Hyunwoo nodded before pushing himself out of the chair, stifling a groan at the effort. “Thanks, Jooheon.”

“Anytime.”

\--

His apartment felt bigger than usual, emptier too. Although he’d been living alone for a few years now, he’d never really felt the full weight of the place until today. Coming home to a dark, empty house...it just struck him differently, today.

He made dinner for one and just sat at the counter, thinking about the day’s events. About people who could lock a child away for having a defect. He doubted the boy even knew that his family had been murdered, and Hyunwoo certainly didn’t want to be the one to tell him. In situations like these, the child still tended to have an emotional bond to the abusers, so despite the objective wrongness of their treatment, it was likely that he’d still be upset.

The one benefit he could perceive was that the boy would hopefully be able to use the Yoo family’s money to treat his disability. Cochlear implants were expensive, Hyunwoo figured, but if the boy could access the Yoo’s financial assets, they would be a distinct possibility.

He wondered what it would be like for the boy to hear possibly the first sound of his life.

He wondered if there would come a day when he and the boy could have a conversation.

\--

“Highly unlikely,” Dr. Lee said dismissively, and Hyunwoo frowned, looking over at Hoseok.

Hyunwoo had arrived at work only to be intercepted by both of them. Jooheon was taking the boy around the building on a snack trip, which gave them a little time to talk in private.

“You don’t think he’ll be able to speak? Even if he gets hearing aids or implants?” Hyunwoo asked, feeling the bright sense of possibility deflate from within him.

“I don’t mean that he won’t be able to communicate in some sense,” Dr. Lee said gingerly, taking in Hyunwoo’s distress. “It’s just that...” He looked over at Hoseok to continue.

“Minhyuk and I were discussing the boy’s case,” Hoseok said, making direct eye contact with Hyunwoo and smiling empathetically. “There’s two main roadblocks. The first is that he was essentially isolated from language for the past thirteen years, so he is experiencing severe language delay. Most children develop the basics of language within the first five years of their lives. After that...” He shrugged a shoulder, his brow furrowing slightly. “There have been several cases of children in similar situations, the most famous one being the case of a girl known as Genie by the psychological community.”

Hoseok paused before gesturing for Hyunwoo to sit down, and they each took a seat, Dr. Lee and Hoseok sitting across the table from Hyunwoo. “Genie was severely abused and neglected for the first thirteen years of her life, conditioned into silence,” Hoseok continued, looking troubled. “Even though she picked up some vocabulary after being removed from that environment, she was never really able to grasp language structure. She could visually represent things, but she couldn’t communicate like you and I are doing right now. And what little language ability she picked up regressed after a certain point. So, the first issue I see is that this boy has already aged out of the developmental period in which he should have acquired language skills.”

“And the second issue?” Hyunwoo asked. Last night, it had felt like there were endless possibilities. The boy would receive some sort of aid to assist his hearing, and the world would suddenly be open to him. But that had clearly been naïve of Hyunwoo to believe. “His hearing, right?”

Dr. Lee nodded, taking over from Hoseok. “Correct. The two issues are similar in a way. There are many children who either possess congenital deafness or prelingual deafness who are able to make a great deal of progress with amplification technology, such as hearing aids, or cochlear implants. However, the longer a child has gone without hearing, and therefore the longer a child goes without exposure to language, the less effective these treatment options appear to be. Even if we provided amplification for his hearing, the sudden barrage of noise after thirteen years of silence would be overwhelming and unpleasant. He may not even know what to make of all the sounds he’s hearing. And there’s still not much evidence to indicate that it would be successful in helping him communicate because, as Hoseok said, he’s already aged out of the formative stage necessary to build complex language skills.”

“So what are our options?” Hyunwoo asked before realizing that there really was no ‘our.’ His only role had been to find the boy and bring him to a safe location. What happened to the boy next was not something he had any right or claim to decide. “What can be done to help him?” Hyunwoo rephrased.

“Well, there’s two main schools of thought,” Hoseok spoke up. “There’s oralism – that would focus on trying to teach the boy how to speak as well as read lips – and there’s sign language or manualism. The first option isn’t really much of an option at all given everything we’ve discussed, so I think our best bet is to have someone attempt to teach him sign language. And I don’t even know if it’ll work given that he doesn’t seem to have language acquisition skills and sign language is still a language in and of itself with its own grammar and structure, but...”

“But we think there’s at least more potential with this option,” Dr. Lee interrupted. “Children with hearing disabilities often tend to place more emphasis on visual elements. I believe that might give him a small advantage.”

“But we can’t guarantee anything,” Hoseok stressed after a moment. “Cases like his...they’re extremely rare. There’s not a lot of literature on the subject.”

“I understand,” Hyunwoo said with a nod. “Thank you for informing me about all of this.”

“Of course,” Hoseok answered like he hadn’t even considered leaving Hyunwoo out of the loop. “I’ve already reached out to a professional associate of mine. He teaches ASL, and when I informed him of our case, he said he’d be more than happy to help. He’ll be coming by for an hour after work each day to work with the boy.”

“So...” Hyunwoo paused, scared to hope. “Child Protective Services isn’t coming to pick him up yet, then?”

“Not yet,” Hoseok confirmed, and Hyunwoo exhaled as relief flooded through him. “I submitted a detailed explanation of the case, and they’re trying to assess their options, but they agreed to let him stay with me for the time being.”

Hyunwoo nodded. He wanted to ask how long he’d be allowed to be in the boy’s life, but he wasn’t sure he was ready for the answer. “You’ll still bring him to the station every day?” he asked instead, and Hoseok nodded, giving Hyunwoo a soft smile that told him that Hoseok had Hyunwoo all figured out.

“I’ll still bring him to work with me in the meantime. You can see him as often as you like.”

Hyunwoo just nodded, not wanting to expose how deeply connected he already felt to a child that would be whisked away at any time. He felt unhealthily attached to him, and it had only been a day. But he’d been the one to lead the boy out of the house, and that had left a large impact on him.

“-all the fruit snacks,” Jooheon finished saying as he and the boy walked in, arms laden with brightly colored packages.

“Why are you babbling away? He can’t hear you,” Dr. Lee said after a moment, not disapproving but rather amused.

“Maybe I’m talking for my own amusement,” Jooheon replied as he dumped at least fifteen fruit snack packages on the table. “I find myself rather entertaining.”

“They’re thinking about bringing in someone to teach him sign language,” Hyunwoo said, turning his head to face Jooheon.

“Cool,” Jooheon responded, grinning as the boy copied him and dumped all the fruit snacks onto the growing mountain. “Can we learn too? The basics at least?”

Dr. Lee looked surprised at the question, but Hoseok smiled warmly. “I think that would be a great idea. If you’re all okay with staying late, perhaps we could sit in on the lessons? If he looks like he’s picking ASL up, we can arrange for a translator to accompany him and interpret, but it would be nice if we all knew a little bit ourselves.”

“I’d like that,” Hyunwoo agreed, and they each nodded.

“Well, I have to get back to work,” Jooheon said, and Hyunwoo hesitated before standing up.

“I should join you,” he said, pushing in his chair reluctantly.

“I can watch him for now,” Hoseok offered, smiling at the boy before looking up at the others. “I don’t have any appointments today, so I’ll hang out with him here.”

“He likes drawing,” Hyunwoo said, pulling out a handle of crayons from his coat pocket and setting them on the table. “I need to grab more paper though.”

“I’ll grab some,” Hoseok offered as Dr. Lee got up.

“I’ve got a special new friend waiting for me in autopsy,” he said by way of excuse, wiggling his fingers in a wave. “I’ll take another look at the younger Yoo son if I have time.”

Hyunwoo waved at Hoseok and the boy before following the others out of the room.

\--

Jooheon leaned back against Hyunwoo’s desk, holding a piece of paper in his hand.

“Well? Are you going to show me?” Hyunwoo asked, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands.

“Thinking about it,” Jooheon said with a smirk. “But first, the chief made it very clear to me that nobody else is allowed to see this and that he had to use a favor from a friend in the medical field.”

“Are we allowed to have whatever this is? We’re not in danger of violating HIPAA?” Hyunwoo asked, brow furrowed heavily. He knew from past mistakes that failing to go by the book could result in evidence being thrown out, charges being dropped, or a guilty man going free.

“Because our kiddo is a victim of neglect, we’re allowed to request the information. The judge – a friend of the chief’s – agreed that we had enough to go on to allow access to his records without signed consent.”

Hyunwoo straightened up in his seat. “These are his records?”

“His only record,” Jooheon said, smile dropping as he handed over the sheet of paper. “Not altogether that helpful.”

 _US STANDARD REPORT OF FETAL DEATH_ was written across the top in bold. Every required field was filled in; only one field – the first one – was left glaringly blank.

_NAME OF FETUS (optional-at the discretion of the parents)_

“Shit,” Hyunwoo muttered, dropping the paper and letting it fall onto his desk, obscuring the unorderly layer of scattered papers. “The one thing I want to know, and of course it’s impossible.”

“Not impossible,” Jooheon corrected. “Just...more difficult.”

Hyunwoo sighed. He didn’t want difficult, not right now. He wanted something to call the boy instead of calling him...well, ‘the boy.’ He needed a name, and Hyunwoo wasn’t ready to just invent one on his own. “His parents still kept him for thirteen years,” Hyunwoo said slowly. “They must have had a name for him. Even if it’s not on any official documentation, they needed _something_ to call him.”

“Okay, well, you can try asking them but I’m fairly sure they wouldn’t respond,” Jooheon said dryly.

“They wouldn’t,” Hyunwoo agreed, ignoring the humor because his mind was picking up pace. “But there might be one person who would know.”

“Who’s that?” Jooheon asked, crossing his arms.

“The only other person who knows that this baby-” He picked up the death certificate, shook it at Jooheon. “-isn’t dead.”

Jooheon exhaled after a long moment. “So now we have to hunt down a doctor. Great.”

\--

The death certificate had the name of the attendant and the person completing the report, but there was no way of knowing whether those people were merely administrative or if they had been present at the time. Jooheon tried contacting the hospital but was stonewalled on claims of employee privacy and confidentiality.

“I think we’ve hit a dead end here. For now at least,” Jooheon amended, sensing Hyunwoo’s growing frustration.

“Somebody knows this boy isn’t dead,” Hyunwoo said yet again even though they’d made no progress in the past hour. “We just have to find this guy.”

“Could be a girl,” Jooheon said.

“I’ve just got a feeling,” Hyunwoo said, sighing as he pushed back from his desk. “I’m going to take a break.”

“Fine by me,” Jooheon said, stretching his arms above his head. “I’m going to grab a quick bite to eat, maybe check up on the kiddo.”

Hyunwoo nodded before heading down to the morgue, knocking on the doorframe to alert Dr. Lee of his arrival.

“Come on in to my humble abode,” Dr. Lee called out cheerily, pushing a pair of goggles up onto his forehead.

“How’s it going?” Hyunwoo asked. He really didn’t want to get a close look at anything down here, but his curiosity led him to notice a fresh cadaver on the closest table.

“That’s my new friend Lily,” Dr. Lee introduced after catching Hyunwoo’s stare. “I found what I needed rather quickly with her, so I had time to look at the Yoo’s son. That’s why you’re here, right? To bug me about the Yoo case?”

Hyunwoo shrugged unapologetically. “More or less...Did you find anything?”

“Remember I told you about their matching scars?” Dr. Lee asked, pulling away from Lily to open a refrigerated unit. He rolled out a metal table upon which laid a body covered by a sheet. Judging from the size of the body, it was clear to Hyunwoo that they were looking at the boy.

Dr. Lee pulled up the bottom half of the sheet to expose the boy’s stomach area. Hyunwoo felt queasy, but he leaned forward to see the scar Dr. Lee was gesturing to.

“And the boy we rescued has an identical scar?” Hyunwoo asked, moving back slightly.

Dr. Lee let the sheet fall back down before adjusting it slightly to properly cover the boy’s body. “Indeed.”

“What does that mean?” Hyunwoo asked, frowning. “Is that evidence of abuse?”

Dr. Lee shook his head. “The scars are too precise for that. They’re surgical marks.”

“Surgical?” Hyunwoo echoed, looking back at the covered boy and recalling an image of the scar in question. “Someone operated on them? For what purpose?”

“I can’t say for certain what precipitated the operation, but my guess would be kidney failure of some sort.”

“Kidney failure?” Hyunwoo was starting to feel like a parrot. “You think they both had bad kidneys?”

Dr. Lee shook his head, twisting his lips up slightly. “I don’t think they both suffered from kidney failure, although we’d have to run some tests on our new station resident to be sure. I’m proposing that _one_ of the sons had kidney failure. This one, specifically.”

“Then why would the other son...” Hyunwoo’s voice trailed off before the realization hit him, and he frowned, taking a step back. “You’re saying they used the kid’s kidney to fix Kihyun? That’s some sort of _My Sister’s Keeper_ shit.”

“All I’m saying is, I suspect that if we took a quick peek, we’d see that the boy upstairs is missing one of his.”

Hyunwoo couldn’t stop the shiver that ran up his spine. “So, they stow their firstborn away because he’s defective-” The word felt ugly in his mouth. “-but then they kept him around for spare parts. That’s fucked up.” The was a cold anger running in Hyunwoo’s blood, one that scared him but couldn’t be easily dismissed.

Dr. Lee nodded stiffly. “Maybe that wasn’t their intention. And that was the only surgical incision I saw on either of them, so it seems to have been a one-time occurrence.”

“Once was too much,” Hyunwoo said softly, still feeling the anger pulsing inside of him. It made him even more angry that there would be no justice, that the Yoo family wouldn’t have to answer for what they’d done. “You think he was allowed to give consent?”

Dr. Lee frowned down at the body before rolling the table back into the compartment and shutting the door. “We have no way of knowing if he issued his consent without locating the surgeon.”

“The surgeon,” Hyunwoo echoed before nodding briskly to Dr. Lee. “Thank you for taking another look.”

“Of course,” Dr. Lee said, looking uncharacteristically troubled. “I’m sorry for the bad news.”

“It may have given me an idea,” Hyunwoo responded before giving a waving and heading out of the morgue, rubbing his arms as he passed through hallways that were a warm respite from the chill of Dr. Lee’s workspace.

\--

“If the Yoo’s wanted to maximize privacy, then they would have minimized the people who were aware of the kid’s existence, right?” Hyunwoo said, appearing right next to Jooheon’s desk.

Jooheon nearly choked on his sandwich, as he’d been caught completely off guard. He coughed several times and took a long sip of water before swallowing and turning to face Hyunwoo. “Don’t just jump out of nowhere and scare me like that, man, shit-”

“Because the more people that knew, the more likely it was that the secret would get out, right?” Hyunwoo pressed.

Jooheon nodded and shrugged, grabbing another sip of water. “Makes sense. So?”

“So maybe the doctor who faked the death certificate is the same one who operated on the boys.”

“Back up – what operation?”

Once Hyunwoo had filled Jooheon in on Dr. Lee’s new information, Jooheon leaned back as far as his chair would allow, frowning and setting down the sandwich in favor of tapping a pen against his desk.

“So you think there’s a possibility that the doctor we’re looking for performed a kidney transplant?”

“I don’t know,” Hyunwoo said, losing confidence in the idea. “It’s unlikely that an obstetrician would be certified to perform that sort of surgery. But if he had the skill and knowledge to do it and the Yoo’s were aware of that, wouldn’t they have chosen to use his services over an unknown doctor’s? Not just as a matter of privacy but as a matter of trust. An unknown doctor who learned of their neglect toward their older son might be compelled to report that information. But the Yoo’s would trust a doctor who had already lied on their behalf, wouldn’t they?”

“Okay, but how many obstetricians are certified to perform a kidney transplant?” Jooheon asked doubtfully, the pen stilling against the desk.

“I don’t know, let me check,” Hyunwoo said, turning back to his desk and moving the mouse around to get the monitor to wake up. Once it was up, he logged in and opened a web browser. _Obstetricians who also do kidney transplants_ , he typed into the search engine bar. He got a lot of results on whether or not women could get a kidney transplant while pregnant or how a kidney transplant would affect a pregnancy, but nothing that answered his question.

He did see a search result responding to the question _What type of doctor does kidney transplants?_ When he expanded the answer, though, he saw that the procedure typically involved and entire team of people.

He sighed and gave up, leaning back in his chair. “Another dead end. You apparently need a whole team to perform a kidney transplant, so even if the doctor was involved in both situations, he wouldn’t be the only one to know.”

“But this is good news, right?” Jooheon asked. “If there had to be a whole team of medical professionals present at the transplant, then that means we’ve got more potential witnesses.”

“Maybe,” Hyunwoo agreed reluctantly. “It just feels like we aren’t getting anywhere.”

“We are,” Jooheon said, his voice gentle as though he realized how disheartened Hyunwoo was. “Whether or not we find all the people who allowed this neglect to happen, we still managed to rescue an innocent kid, and we’re doing our best to make sure he gets the help he needs.”

“But what if it’s not enough?” Hyunwoo asked. “What if they bring in a speech pathologist or an ASL instructor, and it doesn’t change anything? What if we just got to him too late?”

“How was anybody supposed to know that the Yoo family was keeping an extra child locked in the basement for over a decade?” Jooheon asked softly. “How could we have known that?”

“I don’t know but we should have,” Hyunwoo argued, jaw clenching as he fought with a wave of different emotions. “There must have been signs that nobody paid attention to. This kid could have been saved a lot earlier, back when we could have really helped him. But now it’s too late to fix the damage that’s been done.”

“At least he’s not stuck in a basement anymore,” Jooheon said, crossing his arms. “Yeah, we got to him late, but at least we found him at all. And that’s only because you had a hunch. All the forensics people who were in the house never even thought to ask why there wasn’t an entrance to the basement. If you hadn’t noticed something weird about the coat closet, nobody would have found the hidden door. That kid would have never made it out of that room. He would have _died_ in there, Hyunwoo, after starving for days. You’re the reason he’s alive, so no matter what happens – whether or not we can help him regain the fullest quality of life – you did the best you could to find him when no one else would have even thought to look.”

Hyunwoo wanted to say that it wasn’t enough, but he could tell by the look on Jooheon’s face that he wasn’t going to argue any further. Instead, he sighed and did his best to change the subject. “What else can we do on this case?”

Jooheon spun in his chair to face his computer. “Another team of officers are working on the home invasion angle. We’ve been tasked by the chief to look into the boy’s case specifically and to keep it hush hush. So my next plan was to go back and watch all the footage of around the time when the Yoo’s first baby was declared dead. Maybe I’ll find something in there that didn’t show up in the papers. See what you can find out about Yoo Kihyun’s kidney transplant – that might’ve been big enough news for an article.”

“All right,” Hyunwoo agreed. He headed back to his desk and hoped that this lead wouldn’t be another one dead in the water.

\--

Hyunwoo sighed for the millionth time that day as he passed through the station. After two hours of research, all he’d been able to confirm was that Yoo Kihyun had indeed had a kidney transplant. No donor was named, but the transplant surgeon had been. Hyunwoo had called up the office, but the secretary had informed him that Dr. Stephens had left their practice. He’d have to try and track him down tomorrow.

For now, he had a class to go to.

“-to see you, it’s been a while,” Hoseok was saying as Hyunwoo opened the door and nodded to Dr. Lee and Hoseok. “Oh, perfect,” Hoseok said, smiling and turning to face Hyunwoo as well. “This is Officer Son. He’s the one who found the child.”

“Nice to meet you,” the unfamiliar man beside Hoseok said while simultaneously signing the phrase. “My name is Im Changkyun. Hoseok contacted me about your case.”

“Thank you for coming,” Hyunwoo said. He noticed that the boy was sitting at a desk that had been cleared off. “Where are his crayons?” Hyunwoo asked, oddly disconcerted at their absence.

“Oh, I have them in my bag,” Hoseok said. “I just thought they might be distracting if Changkyun is trying to teach.”

“Crayons?” Changkyun asked, continuing to sign while he spoke. “He likes to color?”

“He does,” Hyunwoo said with a small nod, noticing that Changkyun seemed to be watching his lips while he spoke. “He likes drawing things around him. Up until now, that’s only been his room, but I think he’ll start drawing other things soon. And I wrote down a few words for him, and he seems to have learned those.”

Changkyun hummed while he considered what Hyunwoo had said. “Let’s put the crayons in front of him. It may be helpful if he has that option to communicate as well.”

“All right,” Hoseok agreed readily, pulling crayons and extra paper out of his backpack and setting them in front of the boy. Almost immediately, the boy snatched a green crayon and a piece of paper before looking over at Hyunwoo.

“What is it?” Hyunwoo asked, coming closer because it seemed to him like the boy was waiting expectantly.

The boy waited until he was only a few steps away before pointing with the green crayon towards Changkyun.

“Oh, his name?” Hyunwoo asked, already looking back down at the boy and gesturing toward the sheet of paper. The boy handed it over and relinquished the crayon, watching carefully as Hyunwoo wrote a new name on the paper.

_CHANGKYUN_

_CHANGKYUN,_ the boy copied before looking over to Hyunwoo, who nodded. He pointed to Jooheon and looked at the boy, who quickly wrote _JOOHEON._ They repeated the process with _HOSEOK_ , _MINHYUK_ , and before Hyunwoo could even point to himself, his name joined the others on the paper.

“Amazing,” Changkyun said, having watched the entire process. “And he’s only been learning for a day now?”

Hyunwoo nodded, staring down at the boy’s sheet with pride. He’d taught him that. “I think, in a weird way, that words are just pictures to him. I think that’s how he processes things. But his recall is astounding.”

“Quite.”

Hoseok got Changkyun’s attention after that and spoke quietly. “We appreciate you coming in to help, but I need to ask that you keep this strictly confidential.”

“Of course,” Changkyun said. “But can I ask why?”

“Two reasons,” Hoseok said with a sigh. “First off, the boy is from a prestigious family, and the circumstances surrounding his neglect are still a little unclear. Second, there have been a few cases with some similarity in the past, and once the child had become public knowledge, they were flocked by psychologists and researchers and essentially used as a public experiment and object of study. I would like for this boy to not have that experience.”

“I understand,” Changkyun said with a nod. “Shall we begin then?”

\--

The lesson for the day was the ASL alphabet. Changkyun would show a slide with the letter and the hand visual before demonstrating and making sure the boy was imitating it correctly. Then they’d move on to another letter and repeat the process.

Hyunwoo kept up all right, but his recall was nowhere near as good as the boy’s. There were a few letters he just couldn’t seem to remember, but he made a note to look them up at home later and keep practicing.

Changkyun seemed pleased with the boy’s progress, and at the end of the session, he approached the others to debrief them. “He can make the signs rather well,” Changkyun said. “He seems to have the alphabet down. We’ll review it at the beginning tomorrow before starting on some common vocabulary.” He paused to look over at Hoseok and then back at Hyunwoo. “Based on what I was told, I don’t think he will be able to fully utilize the language because learning grammar and structure at his age is extremely difficult. But having a basic vocabulary is a start and will hopefully allow him to communicate, even in a limited way.”

“Thank you,” Hyunwoo said again before hesitating. “Can I ask you something?”

Changkyun nodded. “What is it?”

“Are you deaf as well? Or...” Hyunwoo trailed off, realizing that it sounded like an offensive question to ask, but Changkyun smiled.

“I am. I lost most of my hearing at a young age, but my parents enrolled me in programs to help me learn to communicate almost as well as someone with normal hearing.”

“I’m sorry if it was offensive to ask,” Hyunwoo said. “I just wasn’t sure, and you speak so well that it’s unnoticeable.”

Changkyun nodded. “It’s not offensive to ask, and I don’t mind talking about it. I started off in oralism classes, which focus on teaching deaf people to communicate via speaking and reading lips. My parents originally viewed my deafness as a problem that had to be fixed, as many people do. That I had to become ‘normal.’ But I got older and learned more about the deaf community...there’s a sort of pride in our identity that people don’t understand.”

Changkyun shrugged, making several gestures that Hyunwoo didn’t understand and Changkyun didn’t verbalize. “Sign language and gestures are just more natural to us. There are even people in the community who believe that sign language belongs _solely_ to us and that those outside the community shouldn’t be allowed to use it or teach it. There are also those in the community who reject the practice of oralism because it was originally created as a way to make us like everyone else and erase part of our identity. So I learned to sign because I wanted to connect more with the deaf community, and I began teaching it to others.”

Hyunwoo wondered if the boy would ever belong to a community, if he would find people like him that could understand him and make him feel accepted. He nodded to thank Changkyun for his explanation, and Changkyun looked down at his watch.

“I have to go,” he said, continuing to sign while he spoke. Hyunwoo wondered if it was a habit or if he was just modeling the behavior for the boy. “I will see you all tomorrow.”

Only Hyunwoo and Jooheon weren’t able to participate the next day, or the day after that. A new case came up, and suddenly it was all hands on deck. Any time that Hyunwoo had away from the new case was devoted to tracking down any of the doctors who might have come into contact with the boy.

“Hey,” Hyunwoo said, tapping at the cubicle wall surrounding Jooheon’s desk. “I need to run out for a bit to check on something. It’s a bit of a drive so I’ll probably be out for the rest of the day.”

“Okay,” Jooheon said, still scribbling something on a notepad before he set down the pen and looked over. “I’ll let the chief know if he asks, but I don’t know if anyone will notice. The other investigative unit just brought in three guys they like for the Yoo family murders, so it’s going to be a whirlwind today.”

“They got the guys?” Hyunwoo asked, ignoring the itch in his stomach that wanted him to hurry up and start driving. “How’d it happen?”

“They’re still waiting for a full confession,” Jooheon said, spinning ninety degrees in his chair to face Hyunwoo. “But they already have a statement from the gardener. He was having some financial problems, so he gave his keys to a few guys he knew. The idea was that they would rob the place and he would get a cut for getting them in. He swears he didn’t know they were going to kill anyone. They were just supposed to go in and take what they could carry, but apparently they had other plans. Things escalated...” Jooheon made a vague gesture with his hands and sighed deeply, no doubt envisioning three bodies mutilated and bound to chairs. That’s what Hyunwoo was picturing, anyway. “He broke down, hard. I think he genuinely cared about the Yoo family. He really didn’t know what was going to happen.”

“Whether or not he knew what would happen,” Hyunwoo said, grimacing at the images filling his mind, images he knew he would never forget, “he created the circumstances that allowed for the murder of a ten-year-old boy.”

“I know,” Jooheon said with another long sigh. “It just tells you what kind of fucked up this world is that a ten-year-old boy had to die in order for a thirteen-year-old boy to be saved from a lifetime of neglect.”

Hyunwoo was quiet for a long moment, wanting to argue that there should have been a way to save both, but there was no point in arguing about events that had already transpired. “All right,” he said after another pause. “Keep me updated on how it goes with them. Call me if anything changes.”

“Will do,” Jooheon said, spinning back to his desk.

Hyunwoo gave a final nod and headed for the door, brown paper bag lunch tucked under his arm because he knew this lead would take the rest of the day to run down. He slipped into his squad car, dropped the lunch on the passenger seat and his coffee in the cupholder, and headed out.

\--

Three hours later – two hours for the ride and one for the recorded conversation he now had stored on his phone – he felt completely different than the morning, no longer despairing but almost buoyant with energy. He’d just shifted gears from park to drive when he looked down at his phone and noticed a notification from twenty minutes ago, a voicemail from Jooheon that had likely been left during the time he’d been recording.

He shifted back into park and flicked the notification, holding the phone up to his ear.

_“Hey Hyunwoo, it’s Jooheon. Listen, I know this is abrupt, but Child Protective Services called Hoseok a few minutes ago. They’ve located a family to take the boy in, and they’re going to pick him up after work today. I’m sorry, I know you’re out in the field but they didn’t give us any fucking warning about this. They’ll be here at three if you can make it in time to see him off.”_

The voicemail ended with a click, and Hyunwoo’s buoyancy sank once more as he checked the clock. It was 1:45 now, which only gave him a little over an hour to make the two-hour trek back to the station, a seemingly impossible task.

But he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to try.

He flipped on his lights, switched back into drive, and roared out of the parking lot.

\--

It was 3:07 when he pulled into the parking lot, paper bag lunch uneaten on the passenger seat and coffee ignored as he sprinted from the car, forgetting to lock it in his haste as he ran through the front doors.

He got a few odd looks from other officers, but he paid no attention to them, just saw that Jooheon wasn’t at his desk and changed direction. The interrogation room they’d been using to watch the kid was empty as well, so Hyunwoo hustled upstairs to Hoseok’s office, where Changkyun had been instructing the boy the past few days.

“-just five more minutes,” he heard as he threw open the door.

Jooheon looked over at him immediately, sighing in relief. “See? He’s here, I told you he’d make it.”

Hyunwoo just nodded, catching his breath while he took in the room. Jooheon, Dr. Lee, and Hoseok were standing near Hoseok’s desk. On the opposite side of the room was an unfamiliar but well-dressed woman who Hyunwoo assumed was the CPS representative, and sitting at the empty desk in front of her was the boy. “Sorry I’m late,” he said after a moment, managing to get in enough air to speak.

“That’s all right,” the CPS rep said, sticking out a hand. “My name is Ann Borschert. I’m the caseworker that’s been assigned to this boy. I understand that you’re the officer who found him and brought him in?”

Hyunwoo nodded before gesturing to Jooheon. “Officer Lee was there as well, but yes, we were the ones who found him.”

“Well, I didn’t want to leave before meeting you personally and thanking you for your service,” Ann said with a firm but sincere smile. “I also wanted to reassure you that we’ve found a good family for him that will be able to meet his needs. And Mr. Im will have continued access to this child in order to continue their lessons.” Ann’s smile grew a touch more wistful. “We’ll have to head out in another minute or two, but I figured you’d all want to say your goodbyes.” She paused before nodding toward the group as a whole. “I’ll be waiting in the hallway when you’re ready.”

She slipped out the door Hyunwoo had just entered through, and Jooheon gave Hyunwoo a light punch on the arm.

“I thought you weren’t going to make it,” Jooheon said, relief veiling the worry he’d been carrying. “I thought that maybe you didn’t get my message or something.”

“I got it,” Hyunwoo said, exhaling. “I was just two hours out and had to hustle back. Thanks for calling me.”

“Sorry we didn’t have more of a heads-up,” Hoseok said, eyebrows twisted up sympathetically. “But let’s not waste this time, right?” He smiled as he went around his desk and pulled out a child’s backpack styled in bright colors. “I got him a little something. Just...I felt like it. So he could remember us, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Oh, perfect,” Jooheon said, rummaging around in his own bag. “As soon as I heard that CPS was coming today, I headed out and got something too...Here!” he announced, pulling out a massive pack of crayons and setting them on the table in front of the boy, who stared at them with open curiosity. “This is a 128-crayon set. You’ve got your solid colors, a few sparkly ones, and whatever else Crayola threw in there. No more 8-crayon pack for our little buddy.”

Dr. Lee set a sketchbook down next to the crayons, looking a little embarrassed. “I didn’t know what a kid would like, but I felt like this might be easier so he could have all the paper in one place rather than running through an entire loose ream.”

“Here, I’ll pack it all in his backpack,” Hoseok offered, moving to grab the sketchbook, but Hyunwoo stopped him with a hand on his wrist.

“I...have something for him too,” Hyunwoo said, already feeling a strange knot tightening in his chest. He knew he wouldn’t be ready to let go, he’d always known that this boy wasn’t theirs to take care of, but now was the time and he still wasn’t ready.

Swallowing, he picked up the sketchbook and selected a crayon from the kit Jooheon had bought. He flipped open the sketchbook to the first blank page. Then he wrote the word he’d learned today, the word he’d driven two hours there and an hour fifteen back to get.

He set down the crayon on the table in front of the boy. It felt heavier than when he’d picked it up. Then he flipped around the sketchbook so the boy could see.

_HYUNGWON_

The boy looked at the letters before looking up at Hyunwoo, a confused tilt to his head. He waited for Hyunwoo to point to something, to tell him what a _Hyungwon_ was.

Hyunwoo couldn’t move for a long moment, but then he pointed at the boy and gave a slow nod.

The boy stared at him, eyes growing wide while Hyunwoo’s grew wet. He looked back down at the word, reached out with a shaking finger and touched it, ran the pad of his finger through each letter to feel their existence. Then, ever so slowly, he turned the finger back and touched that same fingertip to his chest right over his heart.

Hyunwoo nodded, unable to hold back the tears that had been building over the past few days. He nodded again before holding out the sketchbook to the boy, who took it with shaking hands and just stared at the letters for a long time.

Then he picked up the crayon.

 _HYUNGWON,_ he wrote beneath Hyunwoo’s writing, the letters as shaky as they’d been when he had been just copying the letters for the first time. He dropped the crayon, letting it roll across the table and fall off the edge. He clutched the sketchbook in two hands, and a few tears dripped from his eyes and fell onto the page. He dropped the sketchbook onto the table and wiped at his eyes before looking up at Hyunwoo and signing something, but it wasn’t a gesture Hyunwoo recognized.

Before he could ask, the door opened slightly and Ann poked her head in. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, her voice gentle as though she knew what they were going through. And she probably did. This was her job, after all. She’d probably watched dozens of people say goodbye to kids that had only been theirs temporarily. “But we have to go now.”

“We understand,” Hoseok said, voice equally soft as Jooheon ducked under the desk and snatched up the fallen crayon.

“Not sending him off with only 127,” he mumbled, voice rough as he slipped it back into its slot.

Hoseok took the sketchbook and delicately flipped the cover back to the front before sliding it into the backpack along with the crayons. He held out a hand for the boy to take, and once he’d stood up, still wiping at a few rogue tears, Hoseok helped him slip his arms through the backpack.

“Bye, kiddo,” Hoseok said, bending down to give him a little hug.

Jooheon held up a vertical hand, and the boy stared at it for a second before putting his up to meet Jooheon’s. “That’s called a high five. Now take care buddy,” Jooheon said, wiping at his own eyes and looking away.

Dr. Lee cleared his throat and gave the boy a small wave.

Hyunwoo was at a loss. He didn’t know what to say or do to make this moment okay. He wished he would have memorized something to sign, but he hadn’t been prepared for this day to come so soon.

All he could do was put a hand over his heart, and the boy copied him. Hyunwoo hoped that he understood, that the boy could feel his own heart beating and imagine that Hyunwoo’s was beating like that too.

“All right,” Ann said softly, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We have to get going. But thank you all for taking care of him the past few days. He’s going to be well taken care of from here on out, I promise.” With one arm on the boy’s shoulder, she led him out of the room, and they all watched the bright backpack disappear behind the door as it shut.

“It’s just so soon, you know,” Jooheon said, wiping at another tear. “I didn’t expect it would be so soon. I thought we had more time with the kiddo.”

“This is what’s best for him,” Hoseok said, although his eyes weren’t dry either.

“This is what a happy ending for him looks like,” Dr. Lee said. He didn’t seem to be as emotionally affected as the others, but he spent most days hanging around dead bodies so he wasn’t exactly the portrait of normal. “It feels sad for us now, but he’s getting a whole new life with people who will love him and help him grow. That’s all we could ask for.”

“Hoseok, you’ve been going with him to Changkyun’s classes, right?” Hyunwoo asked abruptly, and Hoseok gave a surprised nod.

“Yes? What about it?”

“He made this gesture,” Hyunwoo said, clumsily recreating what he’d seen the boy do. “What does that mean?”

Hoseok’s features softened, and a smile curved at his lips as he repeated the gesture. “This means ‘Thank you,’” he said.

Hyunwoo repeated the gesture to himself once more, his heart swelling, and while the others continued on with their conversation, Hyunwoo wandered over to the window and watched the parking lot. A minute later, he saw Ann and the boy walking out the front doors of the station. There was a small moment in which Ann kept walking while the boy stopped and turned, his eyes finding Hyunwoo in the window.

Hyunwoo was caught off guard, but his heart felt light as he copied the boy’s gesture from earlier.

_Thank you._

The boy’s grin was bright and wide in the afternoon sun, and Hyunwoo felt his heart soar even as Ann led the boy to the car and drove out of the parking lot to take him to his new home.

And Hyunwoo felt that what Dr. Lee had said earlier wasn’t quite right.

This was a happy ending for them, and a happy new beginning for Hyungwon.


End file.
